I will share. I am gonna give my papergirl a shitload. She gave Mum and I a note about leaving her route as of yesterday because she got a part time job. She won $250 partly because I praised her up to her boss when I called to get a meassage to her to knock on my door so I could give her Xmas cards (with tips) from Mum and me. After we got the note, I put a note in the mailbox asking her to knock on my door... wanted to give her one last card of thanks.

She did. The card contained a sum of money and a serious thank you. What she gave us was FAR MORE... she said that because of us, she had the confidence to apply for a part time job and got it!

I know that doesn't sound like much but it's a big deal to me and to Mum as well as her. 6AM and slogging through snow and rain and wind for little pay with bad arthritis. If there is a better reason for me to win the lotto, I'd like to hear it.

Of course, I'll send Chongo a large cheque too. Too bad he won't be able to cash it because he doesn't exist either.

The fookin moon still can't be seen and I can't sleep. Ain't that a bitch?

Well, it's 22:00 and I still can't see the moon because of the big apartment buildings next to my house so fuck it. I am going Oggies soon. I have shit to do early in the morn. I have to buy a lotto ticket for the next draw on Wednesday. I KNOW I am gonna win THIS time.

Only cloud here last night but I shall attempt to stay awake until about 21:30 to view Luna tonight. Since I was nine years old, I've had a special fondness for the moon and stars. My old man taught me many things about reading the night sky as it relates to farming and hunting.

That's a mighty fine looking large number, Rap. Do you have room on the shelf for it?

Warm, lovely weather here. MOM enjoyed the ride but you should have heard her at the rest stop yesterday when a family rolled up and parked next to us, got out and proceeded to cough, spit, blow noses (onto the ground, no tissues or anything) and smoke. She said out loud that all that was missing was taking a dump right there on the concrete. They left suddenly. . .

I am screening all calls... except when Mum calls, of course. And anyone who owes me money, naturally... goes without saying, I suppose. And calls from relatives that seldom call because I figure there must be bad news and it's better to get it over with right away. And then there's the doctors' offices and ya gotta take them on accounta if ya try ta call back ya get a busy signal like forever, eh? I suppose I'd take a call from most 'Catters... but only if they had a Mudcat membership.

The truth is, Amos, you left the Episcopalian church cos they drummed you out for yer outrageous sinfullness and yer total lack of repentance, see? You had become an embarrassment to the congregation and you had to go. It was the secret trips down to Mexico and the incident with the poodle that finally put the last rusty nail in yer metaphorical coffin as far as they was concerned. You had gone too far. Beyond the pale. So you was cast out into the outer darkness, driven to seek solace in late night psuedo-intellectual conversations with yer lawyer buddies over at Starbucks and clandestine meetings with proskirts on Sunset Boulevard.

Yers is a sad case. I would shed a tear for yer sufferin' and irredeemably lost soul...if I wasn't too busy right now filin' down this ragged fingernail here.

I knew, if I were to be a Christian, that it would have to be Protestant. No question. But the 'Piskies were just too much sturm und drang and furbelows for my taste, and their metaphysics never did quite add up. So I turned in my altar boy costume and my choir scores and bid a quiet Adieu to all that.

I noticed LH refuses to let Chongo be nettled by my acerbic remarks concerning brains being animated by imaginary characters. Too bad, it was a pretty good line.

Sorry, Charlier Chongo. You can't do that because that brain-in-a-jar belongs to the Mayor of Chicago or one of the aldermen. See, when you go into Chicago politics you gotta leave your brain someplace and just do what you're told. Now we know where all them brains are kept.

Now look here, guys. I was down at the medical labs yesterday checkin' out a stiff for a case I'm workin' on. It was a druggist who got killed by someone shovin' an icepick up his nose. A nasty sight. I gotta find out who did it. And why.

But that's another matter. The point is, they had a livin' brain there in a glass container...a fully functionin' brain that is bein' kept alive on life support inside a saline solution. This brain works. It can add 2 plus 2 and get four. It knows when to scratch an itch...but can't...because it's got no arms, see?

That brain needs a home. It needs a fresh and agreeable host that ain't got nothin' between the ears right now, see?

I am thinkin' that youse people here could all apply to BE that host! You all got the basic credentials: livin' body, no functionin' brains.

So, here's the deal. You all put yer names in the hat, so to speak. You all write in and volunteer to host the bodiless brain in Chicago. Either one of you wins big and gets the brain fulltime...or you could all share it on an equal but part time basis.

There's only about 4 or 5 of you bozos here who are dumb enough to merit this...with Amos and Rap definitely headin' up the line, needless to say, but I think you should look into it pronto. I will help make arrangements.

Move fast on this. Somebody else might get the same idea if you don't. This is yer chance to master some basic things like...knowin' when to talk and when to shut up...comin' in out of the rain...not buggin' people who might decide to kill you...peelin' the right end of the banana...tiein' yer shoelaces...wipin' yer nose...feedin' yerself when ya get hungry...the basics.

- Chongo

p.s. I don't want any money. I am doin' this outta the kindness of my heart, see?

One of the differentating aspects of sane laughter as distinguished from the glee of absolute insanity is the consciousness of place; the madman will conflate locations in his mind without rhyme or reason and find the results very droll, but does not fundamentally know where he, himself, is located.

THere is a Chinese-Mongolian custom, for example, the violation of which assures a sentence of ostracism or death, and which Rapparree has recently violated publically. As he does not even know what the custom is, he will have little defense when the enforcers arrive at his yurt.

Oh, woe for Mom, and for her town And the kidlets in her mansion, For she has dwindled half-way down For lack of wit and scansion. Her chilluns off in far-off lands Too busy are to tend her, And none of all her salty hands Will turn out now to mend her! And I alone, of all her young Have come back home to raise her. Oh,, pity Mom, who all alone Has no-one left to praise her!!

Kemmerer, Pinedale, Jackson, and Driggs? Is that a law firm? Why'd she hit 'em? Professional squabble?

And I have no idea how many grand-nieces/nephews I have. It's hard enough to keep up with grandchildren, of which I have either seven, five-and-a-half, or four, depending on whether step-children's kids count as wholes, halves, or naughts.

Oh, this won't fill them with mayonnaise. I suggest a really cheap wine as the thing to be distilled. Or I can give you plans for several simpler solar stills and a recipe for making your own mash/still beer to run through. Run the still beer through three times and you can run the proof up to, oh, about 150 or so.